#remcycle

The Story

Currents

Riagán was born into the hereditary path of lighthouse keepers out of Northern Ireland, and come the year 1944 as he turned 18 it was officially his time to begin the process of familiarization with the job alongside his father and older brother. It was a quiet life, suffocatingly so for a youth with aspirations beyond the dirty speck of history his soul had been cast into. Riagán felt alien in his own body though hadn’t the words to describe the sensation, even if he’d a willing pair of ears to hear them. With a father of little speech and a brother of gruff mentality, Riagán’s existence on the otherwise unpopulated island was largely made up of speaking only when spoken to and carrying out daily tasks to keep the lighthouse operating. 

Two years into this work Riagán’s father had become too ill to return to the island with his sons and sent them on alone, stranded together in a lethal silence that incubated suspicion and rivalry. Riagán’s brother had never been much of an example, though in those days he had become something to fear. The eldest brother had always speculated a difference in Riagán from the common young man, perhaps it was posture or a softness of voice, perhaps it was nothing at all but a bitter venom for something he couldn’t understand about his sibling. The distaste that Riagán’s brother directed onto him was never with upfront reason, rather it occurred usually through cutting looks, a roughness of interaction, and disapproval of Riagán’s skill working about the lighthouse. In the meantime Riagán’s own thoughts concerning self reflection had become murky at best, poisonous at worst to his own mental state. It had started to become evident in Riagán's mind that he expected never to make it off that island for another visit home, be it by his own hands or that of his brothers; however he hadn’t factored in the third party that would truly be his rebirth into a new world.

It was mid December when the lighthouse was made to bear violent beatings by storm from night into day for nearly a fortnight. The restlessness of being caged into close quarters with a brother entirely sour with hatred had become too uncomfortable even in the silence they shared, Riagán chose instead to spend the nights at the peak of the lighthouse in the blinding beam of undulating light. Sleep did not exist for this time and several nights into Riagán’s watch of the occasionally visible beaches below, a figure became barely illuminated like a mist moving along the shore. There was no certainty at first whether this was a true visitor or a vision come out of the strain of sleepless nights; she had become a longing presence for Riagán as if a piece of himself had cast out freely toward the eternal churn of ocean lapping in the storm. She… Her gown whipping about before her, hair pulled in all directions like seaweed tumbled on the waves, arms reaching… To Riagán? The moon? The heavens? They pulled all above down by invisible ropes.

It was six nights passed that Riagán finally answered that pull. Down the winding stairs that could have led him on to no end, through the sickening quiet of that space where judgement was born, and into the night torn by hellstorm. By the time Riagán met the shore beyond treacherous cliffs he had nearly been frozen to the core by rain and wind, clinging weak but desperate to some vague promise of freedom from a dying life. She was there, real, waiting, hungry. A deal was struck, the mortal’s blood was shed by fang and replaced by immortal vitae lapped from the sharpest stones at the sire’s feet. Riagán was born anew, Riah. She was a true mother now, Katherine Mathers of England.

Mademoiselle Sœurs

Riah was a born Malkavian and a blood Mathers, recognized under her sire’s wing now as a daughter. Alongside this there was another, an adoptive sister of Norwegian origin by the name of Lilija Mathers; a sickly little thing sired at 19 on the trembling lip of death it seemed. Lilija was not Katherine’s own creation but was taken in by her after her true sire’s death. The chosen family of three had taken up in France together where Riah would be taught the arts of gambling and attraction, whilst Lilija took her place on stage at the finest ballets of the era. Katherine was a proud and strong force in the lives of her spawn, pushing them as well as fawning for them with resplendent affections. It was a lavish way to experience the new world for Riah of course, though there was an ever present uncertainty behind it all. Riah had gone from one assigned role to the next. What at first appeared to be an escape was only the same trap she’d been led into upon mortal birth, now immortal. Son, daughter, these titles fell outside of Riah nearly as much as she herself felt outside of her own bodily form. What was once a birthright was now a bloodright, loyalty was owed for the afterlife Katherine had given Riah; anything less would surely have been selfish.

Lilija had become the one true freedom Riah had ever known, as a deeper love developed between them in the confines of secrecy so much that it existed entirely unspoken. As the hatred had once been palpable between brothers, it was now a love unspoken between sisters. Yet they were not truly sisters, not by birth nor sire; they were only two extensions of a powerful ego to whom they answered in every success and failure. They existed as cion to Katherine, not for their own ambitions despite how she spun promises of a world for her “spawn.” But of course Katherine could sense when loyalties had shifted between her own subjects from herself; this realization presented in disgust and shame cast with full weight onto Riah and debilitating defense of the “helpless” Lilija who couldn’t possibly have a mind of her own. With that, Katherine whisked Lilija up and left for London so that Riah might dwell alone in her flaws and remember just how much she depended on her sire.

Adrift

America was a new horizon for the still fresh Vampire when they arrived in the late 1950s, alone and titled only by the initials RM. The first couple of years in the states consisted of working portside bars where anonymity was commonplace and working the graveyard shift went unquestioned, though RM soon became a familiar enough presence to have their title morphed into something of a nickname; Rem. This is who they were without the guiding hands of conditional love and support, existing outside of expectations and settling into some strange comfort with their own sense of aimlessness. Over the years of course Rem had to move further inland for fresh jobs and fresh faces to avoid the obvious suspicion of an unchanging entity, though they often held to working in pubs and bars, even stepped into a club for a stint in the coke crazed 80s. Rem scraped by unfastened from family business, though they did benefit from the skills they’d learned from their past as some of those professional insights held truly timeless despite the evolution of society. Gambling, cheating, and bargaining would always have chances in someone’s favor.

All In

By the late 90s Rem had garnered some small success in modeling when scouted from a nightclub they served drinks at, the “heroin chic” look had entered the scene and with it their androgynous look caught attention. It was only part time work and it didn’t pay much extra, but it felt closer to an accomplishment than Rem had had prior. Around this time a familiar face re-emerged from their past; had Kathy finally recognized Rem as her successor? Short answer, no. Worse yet, she was there on business; the business of tracking down a hunger striking Lilija who had fallen back on bad habits to combat the adoptive sire’s micromanagement of her undead existence. The disappointment in Rem for still failing to meet Katherine’s expectations had been quickly replaced by concern for the kindred they still loved, tragically. The possibility that Lilija was running dangerously close to her own beast, a full loss of humanity from her prolonged starvation. Katherine had tracked her as far as America, after that she knew Rem had to do the rest to appease that beast or at the very least vanquish it before an inevitable breach fell on the shoulders of the claimed sire.

Traced into the sunken levels of the city Subway amid the rancid glow of weak fluorescents, Rem found Lilija. Lost and confused, yet simultaneously more within herself than in any of the years they’d known her. She had wandered too close to the beast and as a result could only offer a deal undeniable by Rem, a bet, a gamble, a game of Russian Roulette on the tracks. Rem won.

That night when Rem returned home to their flat just before dawn, it was empty. Katherine had left long before they’d returned, as if fully aware she would be leaving alone without her adopted. When Rem washed the blood away, their hair rinsed not the deep brunette it had always been before but instead had taken on the cool, albino white of their former love. The features looking back at them through the mirror with unusual resemblance to that of Lilija; thus began their unhealthy dependence on shapeshifting to recognize something within them which was truly, entirely without. This addiction became so severe over the years that at some point Rem forgot who they once appeared to be, they lost all recognition for themselves and soon their reflection offered only a blur.

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